greeting, nikos,
i understand why you are so angry. and i wonder when you will recognize
that you are nothing but a product of the antagonous foreign policies
between TUrkish Republic and Greece. As a Turk, whose grandmother is
KUrdish and father is Laz, and as an individual who spent her childhood in
the southeastern part of TUrkey, I acknowledge TUrkish state's
assimilationist policies which arepart and parcel of a nation-building
process. Such endevaours are not unique to TUrkish nationalism or TUrkish
state policies but may be observed in other projects. As social scientist
(i hope you are also a social scientist though your language disproves my
idea) we shgould trace the inadequacies. As policy makers, we should
recommend the decision-making organzations to embrace their people and
recognize their historical mistakes. But this should not be done in the
way you write.
As a Turkish girl who was born in the small, pretty idea of Mediterrenean,
CYPRUS, I want to ask you whether you, as a Greek, may recall how the
Greeks and Greek Cypriots imprisoned thousands of people in the
Girne castle and did not let them go. CAn you recall how many people your
fellow ancestors or citizens killed innocent people trying to survive in
their houses? I don't want to blame you or your decision-makers. This is
how the MAchiavellian world works. BUt when you are making some
assumptions about a state, its history and its people, think twice about
your roots. As the saying goes, politics is playe dwith dirt hands.
Everybody has dirty hands. DOn't ignore yours next time when you are
writing.
JUst a quick note, we held a Greek-Turkish table a couple of weeks ago at
an international festival here in Chicago. We served Greek and TUrkish
food together and hung up posters from both countries. NObody was talking
as you wrote. NOt because we do not know about these historical mistakes
but because we are ready to embrace national differences and bring about a
bright future for both nations. This, we believe, will not be achieved by
supporting terrorism or maintaining "hate webpages". We ignited the flame
for real friendship. We have a dream and I hope you one day share it
rather than make fun of it which I know for sure that you will do in your
next message.
sorry that i could not learn a greek word yet. if i did, i wont use it for
degrading on'e national or ethnic honor.
burcak keskin
University of Chicago 1414 East 59th Street, #847
Master of Arts Program Chicago IL 60637
in the Social Sciences Phone:773 955 07 13
---
Body as the site of micro-physics of power takes its place in identity
struggles as the inscribed surface of events.
(Foucault:Discipline&Punishment:148)
On Wed, 12 May 1999, Nikos Gousgounis wrote:
> Mustaffa Pacha Effendim
>
> AMAN AMAN
>
>
> Sorry , but to describe yourself as a "Kurdish and from Turkey" is to my mind
> as to say an Englishman from US. Funny is it not ? Do you have any national
> cultural identity as a Kurd or are you assimilated in the melting pot inherited
> from Byzance to the Ottoman Empire ? Are you proud to not support your people
> coming from the East in the very moment that you tend to the West ? Is that an
> excuse to say that there are two millions of Kurds in Istanbul ? Guney the
> film
> director was one of them and we all liked his films but he never was a
> separatist
> and yet he could speak about the oppression of your terrible dictature on the
> peasants and Instanbulians too. But he left this world rather early. I should be
> curious to see if he lived now would he support the Nato bombings ?
>
> Are you so much satisfied with the Democracy offered to you by Madame Chiller
> and Mr. Gilmas ? They all live on american currency. Corruption is not just
> on the
> level of baktshich in Turkey, it's much more. A Kurd must be happy only if rich
> and prosperous in his carpet business ?( most if not all the bazaar carpet
> sellers
> are Kurds). I think that national identity is much more than assimilation under
> financial terms. Anyway, actual Turkey is not the best of the places for
> proclaiming
> cosmopolitan ideas. There is too much fanatism in the air and Turkish prisons
> were full of Kurds a long time before European governments started supporting
> separatist Kurds as you say.
>
> And the most important : Don't forget that the first Kurdish separatist
> movement
> financed by CIA was not in Turkey but in Iraq in the early seventies when
> the leader
> was Mr Barzani and the enemy was the Baath regime of Iraq ( pro-marxist ).
> Suddently after Barzani Kurds stopped attacking Saddam Hussein but turned
> against
> the Turkish state ? They must have lost their gratitude to what Mother
> Turkey gave
> to them in 1916 ( History is History ). You have not any idea of who
> massacred more
> than a million Armenians and took their lands in Kilikia , Erzerum,
> Diaberkir, Urffa and
> Van golu region to the Iranian border ? Did Kurds loose their collective
> memory ? THAT WAS A GENOCIDE 1000 TIMES MORE IMPORTANT OF WHAT
> IS HAPPENNING IN KOSSOVO. Do you have to tell something about your oriental
> ancestors ' endeavours at the time ? Some Armenians still remember. They
> also live in
> Istanbul as you but they remember. Maybe they were your classmates. Why
> don't you
> ask them about THEIR genocide ?
>
> My conclusion is that assimilation is presented as a smart solution in the
> new century
> of globalisation. It's no more an offence so I hope I will no more be named
> as a racist
> by any smart democratic gentleman of this list by calling you the final
> product of a perfect
> ethnic assimilation in the lap of MULTINATIONAL Mother Turkey.:
> THE MOTHER OF ALL NATIONS. ( the father ATA being always Kemal ATATURK)
> It does not even matter if Kurds are Indo-europeans and Turks of Mongolian
> stock. Who cares
> about these unimportant details ?
>
> Small remark : If you look at the touristic guides of National Turkish Bureau,
> Hittites, Lydians, Ionians and Byzantines were all ancestors of Turks . Even
> Homer
> living in the Asian Minor coast was a pro-Turk named Omer and his poems were
> first sung in Turkish oral dialectal language and then transcripted in
> literate Greek.
> Now are you satisfied ? Maybe Homer was a Yuruk Turk. Sorry for calling Homer
> still in Yunanistan ( Greece-Hellas) after his initial HELLENIC name : OMIROS.
>
> If I was a nationalist I should proclaim Agia Sophia and all the lost lands
> where Greek
> was spoken for 3000 years, but I don't give a damn. I am glad that Greece kept
> its language and religion under Ottoman rule for 400 years otherwise that
> could be
> impossible under Occidental European Rule. We owe our language survival to the
> laziness of the Turks authorities,that's right. Also we learned how to cook
> pastrouma
> moussaka, souvlakia, tas kebab and imam baildi, we learned how to bath in hamams
> and how to dance carcilama and zeibec and how to appreciate original
> oriental hashich.
>
> AFFERIM EFFENDIM
>
> AND YET YOU DID NOT INFORM US ABOUT YOUR VIEWS ON
> NATO SMART BOMBS. All you can do so easily is to characterise others as racists.
> Is that the only scientific task of professional well-paid sociologists ?
> Thanks a lot.
> Except id sociology is useful to evaporate History and to pronounce noble words
> about human rights etc, while some strong Goliaths ruin some small Davids.
>
> Sorry, I forgot to apologise to all respectable members of this EUROPEAN list
> who feel that all this Oriental stuff is out of their OCCIDENTAL RATIONAL
> concerns.
>
>
> Nikos, from the South Eastern coast of EUROPE ( one more Greek word, sorry).
>
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